Corrections; Video Interview with Ken Balough on Sonic CD, Sonic 4

A little real talk first before business goes on. We earlier reported that Sega staff member Patrick Riley was interviewed by forum member Shade Vortex. It looks like he might have been a little starstruck as he was actually not speaking to Patrick Riley at all, but Sonic Digital Brand Manager Ken Balough. Patrick Riley had no involvement with the previous interview and we wish to offer our apologies to the two gentlemen and to you, our readers who put up with us, for the confusion. For future reference:

This is Patrick Riley.

This is Ken Balough, as you truly imagined him. Please beat us over the head if this happens again.

Let’s move on to the video interview goodness after the jump.

A few things are tackled and clarified within this monstrous video that have been causing quite a stir in the fan base all over as of late about time lines and Sonic 4, green eyes and physics. Since this post is already about clarifications, here’s a handy dandy abridged list of answers from Balough himself.

It’s commonly understood that Sonic 2, Sonic 3 and Sonic and Knuckles form what is called “The Death Egg Trilogy” because of the overarching story of Eggman’s Death Egg across the titles. Sonic CD was a self-contained adventure that hovered around that area with the most popular belief to be between Sonic 1 and Sonic 2, despite no true concrete evidence.

Sonic 4 is trying to bridge all of them together more. It’s not trying to give Sonic CD a concrete place in the timeline, just say that “It happened prior to Sonic 4: Episode 1.” It does not mean Sonic CD is immediately before Sonic 4: Episode 1 and after Sonic 3 and Knuckles.

The events of Sonic CD are important to Episode 2. You can see Metal Sonic in the ending. The idea is you’ll see how Metal Sonic comes back after his destruction in Sonic CD and his return. (Knuckles Chaotix unavailable for comment.)

“You’ve got to work within the confines of what a publisher is and what a publisher does in order to get all the benefits as well. We as a publisher will get the benefits from working with really talented developers, and developers on the flip side get the benefits of working with a publisher and all the things and all the exposure they get and they can bring to the table, as well as working on really big brands, like Sonic.”

On Metal Sonic: “He’s appeared in some of these [games], but we’ve never made him so integral to that continuity. We’ve had him back, but no one ever explained how he comes back after CD. He’s just there. So, we’re going make sure that we fill in some of these really nice… I almost think of it like Star Wars, right? We’re going to go back and explain this really cool era that was the Clone Wars? We’re going to go back and explain this really cool era that was the classic experience, and show you guys some really fun stuff.”

With regards to Sonic 2 Spindash and the “HD Filter”: “Stay tuned.” He doesn’t want to confirm anything until details are more concrete. However, a filter will be present.

On Sonic CD not being on 3DS, Vita: “We never really intended to release it yet for the Playstation Vita, or the Playstation Go, or the Nintendo 3DS… those were never really on the table. We were always talking about, ‘It was either digital console or mobile devices.’

He’s unable to comment on why the game isn’t on WiiWare.

The U.S. Soundtrack will not be included at this time due to licensing issues. However, there’s a couple of more surprises to be revealed later down the road.

The trailers have nothing to do with the continuity of the games. They’re their own thing designed by Balough. The ‘detour’ talked about previously is Sonic going to the past so players can relive Sonic CD and understand its events and references in Sonic 4: Episode 2.

Phew! So much for abridged. Either way, special thanks one more time to Shade Vortex for interviewing Ken “Not Patrick Riley” Balough and helping to shed light on all the confusion that’s occurred in the last day.

Gene is the ghost of a Floridian who froze to death in a Chicago winter. He now haunts a server inside the Sears Tower and does terrible things on this very website. Also something about Sonic 2006 100% twice. It was awful.

Sonic Team did concretely state that Sonic CD was supposed to be between Sonic 1 and 2, despite it launching after Sonic 2. The Tails cameo saying “see you next game”, was meant to be a teaser for the unveiling of Tails as a character.

It’s actually one of the first instances of in-game viral marketing, albeit a failure due to the delays in launching the game.

Thankfully Sonic Team appears to have sound enough marching orders to make Sonic 4 not clearly defined in that lineage, which they appear to have successfully accomplished. As they say, do no harm.

I could dig up old magazines, but they’re a good few hundred miles away.

It is well established by Sonic Team members that Sonic CD was meant to be released in-between Sonic 1 and Sonic 2. While Sonic Team Japan was building Sonic CD, Sonic Team USA was building Sonic 2, with Yuji Naka and several key members working with STI onshore on the game.

The goal was to have two Sonic games that were technically advanced, for different reasons. Sonic CD would be more like Sonic 1 but benefit from lacking the constraints of a file size limit (though, in reality, Sonic Team Japan didn’t go much beyond a cart when you cut out the music and special stages).

This is why Sonic CD is more of a revisit of Sonic 1 than Sonic 2; Sonic 2’s branch of Sonic 1 code had the benefit of STI’s R&D, allowing it to differ so vastly. This is also why Sonic CD’s code branch was dropped after its release, in favor of the more upgraded Sonic 2 code.

The Sonic Spin Dash was actually a late add, it was not originally going to be in Sonic CD, but as Sonic CD came closer to Sonic 2’s release date (which was on track, unlike CD), Sonic Team Japan had to backport the effect. With no updated sprite to match (since CD was only using Sonic 1 engine code), that is why the Spin Dash matches Sonic 1’s sprite.

The Tails cameo artwork was a tip of the hat to the Sonic 2 team in USA, and was approved by Naka to act as a teaser for the upcoming release.

The delays to Sonic CD forced a dropping of any references to Sonic 1 and Sonic CD on a timeline, which is where Sega’s digital brand managers start to get the facts right.

Well, this is actually a pretty debated topic. I think it is a more minor point, so I’ll suggest if you believe it was purely a reference to Sonic Drift 2 that you read the other points, and they stand exogenous to that one.

Part of the problem was that after the success of Sonic 1, there was so much pressure on Sonic Team that schedules and plans overlapped. Sonic Drift 2 and Sonic 2 were both on the horizon.

In either case, the decision was clear that Sonic CD was intended to launch alongside or shortly before Sonic 2, but not to serve as a sequel to Sonic 2. There were at one time plans to make Sonic CD either a remake of Sonic 1, or an enhancement to Sonic 2, but both were dropped.

So we need an explanation on how Robotnik fixed one of his robots? I demand Episode 3 bridges the gap between Sonic CD and Knuckles’ Chaotix…if the world hasn’t been destroyed by sonicfags by that time

It’s one of those things where Iizuka made a statement that he was treating the Chaotix as new characters. Of course, aside from Charmy acting like a complete retard (lol who is eggman) there was nothing in the game that made them act like they were new to everything. There was really no reason to not have Chaotix be a part of the game canon, especially since the plot to that game even gracefully acknowledged both Sonic CD and Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Maybe if it was on a system the Japanese actually cared about (or anyone for that matter) the game would still be in the line of succession. And really, you can say it is without contradicting anything aside from Charmy being retarded. And we can always do what Archie did: blame it on brain damage.

No he wasn’t. That was Mecha Sonic. Or really, a version of Mecha Sonic. Metal Sonic and Mecha Sonic are two different robots. You can argue if the Mecha Sonic from Sonic 2 and the one from Sonic & Knuckles are the same robot but upgraded, or if they only share the same name, but it is definitely not Metal Sonic.

Sonic Adventure also placed the original Genesis games and Sonic CD in the same continuity, what with it referencing Amy’s adventures with Sonic on the Little Planet, and the plot expanding on the backstory that was in the Japanese manual of Sonic 3. Sonic 4 doesn’t need to be there for Sonic CD to be part of the story. I’m not saying it’s bad that Sonic 4 is using Sonic CD elements…but…well, ok. Maybe I am. But that’s only if Sonic 4: Episode II is as bad as the first. If Sonic 4 was a good game, I’d have no issues with them throwing in Metal Sonic.

Wii Family Edition (an “update” to the Wii, moreso a transitional kind of thing to the Wii U since it’ll only be laid on its side and will not support GameCube) doesn’t support GameCube, but that’s not until it’s actually released.

Well, let me clarify this a little more. It’s not so much that it can’t be licensed so much as there isn’t a provision within the existing license that accounts for the digital distribution and sale of the music. They’re trying to update the license to include that, which may include negotiations with Spencer Nilsen and the members of Pastiche.
Licenses are quite a pain in that you have to be very specific with the provisions when negotiating the license to prevent having to do this. Notice that neither Sonic CD nor the U.S. Soundtrack, shy of pirate sites, have ever been released for sale digitally.

This explains much, I thought Balough wouldn’t be as much of a noob as Riley, no offense to the guy but “he should check before say stuff” this is the Sonic fandom we’re talking about, something may seem silly to him could cause a huge argument among the fans.

Thanks Ken for explaining this, I’m glad Sonic CD is getting more love now, and since this port is happening I guess in the future SEGA will re-release this baby more often so it won’t just be Sonic 1-3K, here’s hoping for Sega Sonic Arcade and Sonic The Fighters!

Sorry for double post, I remembered something I forgot to say, if you could merge these two comments I’ll be thankful.

Regarding the last statement about Sonic CD being AFTER Sonic and Knuckles, I was thinking didn’t Sonic Trible Trouble happen around that time? and it did have both Knuckles “as an enemy” and Metal Sonic, and of what I know the game was also made by Sonic Team so it’s not like Knuckles Chaotix where it’s not canon, I found it confusing how Sonic fought Metal Sonic before he first met him in Sonic CD, I also consider Sonic 2 8bit to happen right between Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 16bit considering how it explains how Sonic and Tails became friends!

Where’d you get that from? Most of the handheld games are considered non-canon. Why do you think Sega is not displaying them on the “Sonic timeline.” Those games are just as non-canon as the Sonic Advance games and the Sonic Rush ones.